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THE BROWNS BOARD

Deeply Religious People are Weird


MLD Woody

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3 hours ago, calfoxwc said:

I disagree - religious fanatics refused to accept anything that contradicts their locked in loyalty to even a farfetched nonsense cult....

The only major difference between a cult and a religion is the number of "believers" in said cult.

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6 hours ago, MLD Woody said:

An important aspect of religion is ignoring all of the science around you that explains away your beliefs.

With that in mind, climate change deniers are much closer to religious fanatics

no no no you cant double dip here on your trollpost.....

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35 minutes ago, calfoxwc said:

Hmm. Science "proves" Christianity is real? Well, then it also "proves" that:

etc. etc. etc.

 

See the pattern? Science does indeed prove that your religion is real...as long as it's YOUR religion. 

 

 

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47 minutes ago, calfoxwc said:

fake. you "LOL" because you're afraid to read the links, or you glanced at them and can't refute them.

typical woodpecker.

Well, then, perhaps I can have a go:

https://pjmedia.com/faith/science-reinforces-christian-belief/

The article is trying to show that, since the tomb has been tentatively dated to around 345 CE, and that, according to Christian tradition, According to historical accounts, the tomb was discovered by the Romans and enshrined around 326 CE, this is evidence that it is indeed the tomb of Jesus. 

However, from the article:

"While it is archaeologically impossible to say that the tomb is the burial site of an individual Jew known as Jesus of Nazareth, who according to New Testament accounts was crucified in Jerusalem in 30 or 33, new dating results put the original construction of today's tomb complex securely in the time of Constantine, Rome's first Christian emperor."

So, the authors of the article admit that it's archaeologically impossible to demonstrate that the tomb is Jesus', yet the write an article doing just that. They are literally countering their own argument within their own article. Shoddy work, at best.

 And, the archaeology supposedly only dates the tomb back to 300 years after the alleged death of Jesus. You're telling me that Constantine the Great managed to locate the EXACT tomb more than 300 years after the fact. Color me skeptical on that one. 

Also, if archaeology is the determining factor in whether or not metaphysical religious beliefs of a specific religion are valid, then what about the archaeological evidence of other religions? How about the Mosque of the Prophet in Medina, Saudi Arabia? It enshrines the tombs of Mohammed and early islamic caliphs, as well as Mohammed's supposed house - more physical, tangible "evidence" than any Christian apologist can provide. So why don't you convert to Islam?

Or, how about Buddhism? There is archaeological evidence of the Buddha's birthplace, the palace in which he grew up, and the place where he died,  as well as numerous supposed physical remain. Buddhism even predates Christianity by half a millenia. Does that mean you should convert to Buddhist teachings?

 

Again, archaeology and objective "evidence" only factors into "proving" that a religion exists only when the religion in question IS YOUR OWN RELIGION.

 

 

As for the second article: https://www.christianitytoday.com/iyf/advice/faithqa/what-is-cult.html

The article attempts to define what a cult is, and how they differ from the Christian religion. They even mention that Christianity was viewed as a cult in its early days, due to its relatively low number of adherents when compared to the prevailing Grecco-Roman religion at the time. I don't see how this is much of a counter to what I mentioned earlier in the thread when I said that the only difference between a religion and a cult is number of believers. Regardless, lets continue. The article then lists the criteria of cults:

1) Exclusive. They may say, "We're the only ones with the truth; everyone else is wrong; and if you leave our group your salvation is in danger.

Gee, where else have we heard that before?:

  • John 14:6: Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father but through Me.
  • Acts 16:30-3: "What must I do to be saved?” They replied, “Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved—you and your household.”
  • Acts 4:12: "Neither is there salvation in any other: for there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved."
  • Romans 10:8-10: "8 But what saith it? The word is nigh thee, even in thy mouth, and in thy heart: that is, the word of faith, which we preach; That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.
  • John 3:36:  "He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life: and he that believeth not the Son shall not see life; but the wrath of God abideth on him."

2) Secretive. Certain teachings are not available to outsiders or they're presented only to certain members, sometimes after taking vows of confidentiality.

  • Matthew 16:20: "Then charged he his disciples that they should tell no man that he was Jesus the Christ."
  • Mark 4:10-12: "And when he was alone, they that were about him with the twelve asked of him the parable. And he said unto them, Unto you it is given to know the mystery of the kingdom of God: but unto them that are without, all these things are done in parables; That seeing they may see, and not perceive; and hearing they may hear, and not understand; lest at any time they should be converted, and their sins should be forgiven them."

3) Authoritarian. A human leader expects total loyalty and unquestioned obedience.

  • John 15:14: "Ye are my friends, if ye do whatsoever I command you."

  • John 14:15: "If ye love me, keep my commandments".

  • Colossians 3:22: "Servants, obey in all things your masters according to the flesh; not with eyeservice, as menpleasers; but in singleness of heart, fearing God"

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1 hour ago, calfoxwc said:

out of context. but thanks for trying.

I literally took the information from links that you posted and did a critical breakdown of them, step by step, and pointed out the fallacies and incongruities I found there, and laid out my counterarguments rather plainly. They are not out of context. But, by all means tell me EXACTLY what/how I got "out of context" about what you posted - specifically, the two links that I broke down, not your usual reflect and redirect horsesh.it.

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1) Exclusive. They may say, "We're the only ones with the truth; everyone else is wrong; and if you leave our group your salvation is in danger.

Your basic bitch is fundamentally ignorant.  There is no Christian basis upon which the local church is the only group that is going to get salvation. WACO was a localized group. Jonestown sp? was a localized group. The Word of God is not localized, nor does scripture say that any one person is a super special idol in the localized group.

2) Secretive. Certain teachings are not available to outsiders or they're presented only to certain members, sometimes after taking vows of confidentiality.

Again, you insult the point. Jesus instructed a man who he healed of leprosy, to not tell anyone, lest he end up having to leave the area before his work was done. You could look this up yourself, but it's too easy to try to be a dumb butt about it. This part has to do with secret handshakes, secret initiations, secret codes, etc that only the group is allowed to know. That is NOT what the cherry picked line refers to.

https://www.gotquestions.org/do-not-tell.html

Answer: After healing a man of leprosy (Mark 1:41-42), "Jesus sent him away at once with a strong warning: 'See that you don't tell this to anyone...'" (Mark 1:43-44). To our way of thinking, it would seem that Jesus would want everyone to know about the miracle. But Jesus knew that publicity over such miracles might hinder His mission and divert public attention from His message. Mark records that this is exactly what happened. In this man’s excitement over his being miraculously healed, he disobeyed. As a result, Christ had to move His ministry away from the city and into the desert regions (Mark 1:45) “As a result, Jesus could no longer enter a town openly but stayed outside in lonely places. Yet the people still came to Him from everywhere.”

In addition, Christ, though he had cleansed the leper, still required him to be obedient to the law of the land — to go at once to the priest, and not to make delay by stopping to converse about his being healed. It was also possible that, if he did not go at once, evil-minded men would go before him and prejudice the priest and prevent his declaring the healing to be true because it was done by Jesus. It was of further importance that the priest should pronounce it to be a genuine cure, that there might be no prejudice among the Jews against its being a real miracle.

Finally, Jesus did not want people focusing on the miracles He performed, but rather the message He proclaimed and the death He was going to die. The same is true today. God would rather that we be focused on the healing miracle of salvation through Jesus Christ instead of focusing on other healings and/or miracles.

3) Authoritarian. A human leader expects total loyalty and unquestioned obedience.

   seriously? In Christianity, there is never any human leader that demands total loyalty and unquestioned obedience.

The problem with your knee jerk points are, OUT OF CONTEXT. In Jonestown you could be murdered, imprisoned if you tried to leave. There is no free will in a cult. In Christianity, everything is free will. You can decide or not, leave or stay, sin or not sin, change churches change religions, change states, quit any church any time.

Completely out of context.

 

 

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) Exclusive. They may say, "We're the only ones with the truth; everyone else is wrong; and if you leave our group your salvation is in danger.

Yes, okay. So what? Why would you waste your time going through the motions of being a member of any particular religion if you didn't believe it to be true?

And Christianity as far as I know there is one way to Salvation.

I have a good Jewish friend who said that he couldn't vote for a particular candidate because of that candidates religion. That religion said that only people who accepted Christ would go to heaven and the rest would go to hell.

I asked him if he believed in hell and he said no which begs the question "then who cares?"

WSS

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1 hour ago, Westside Steve said:

) Exclusive. They may say, "We're the only ones with the truth; everyone else is wrong; and if you leave our group your salvation is in danger.

Yes, okay. So what? Why would you waste your time going through the motions of being a member of any particular religion if you didn't believe it to be true?

And Christianity as far as I know there is one way to Salvation.

I have a good Jewish friend who said that he couldn't vote for a particular candidate because of that candidates religion. That religion said that only people who accepted Christ would go to heaven and the rest would go to hell.

I asked him if he believed in hell and he said no which begs the question "then who cares?"

WSS

http://www.chabad.org/library/article_cdo/aid/1594422/jewish/Do-Jews-Believe-in-Hell.htm

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19 minutes ago, LogicIsForSquares said:

I would lump all religions and cults together. Having blind faith in anything doesn’t jive with me. Other people are free to do so if it makes them happy. I also don’t let friends borrow money on blind faith that they will pay me back.

That's understood, probably a bad idea to lend money to a friend that you can't afford to lose. The money or the friend.

WSS

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24 minutes ago, Westside Steve said:

In what way and what difference does it make to you? Seriously?

I think we are pretty familiar with your opinion of religion in the first place so why does one offend you and not the other if that's the case?

WSS

Neither offend me

 

Cults are different than the norm, so they're a cult. Once a cult is accepted in a certain area, they're a religion.

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